Tamed by Love (Agent Lovers Series Book 2) (27 page)

“No one could blame him for that,” said Terence, shaking his head. “When it comes to his wife, Gray seems to go nuts. If love does that to a man, I hope it never gets ahold of me.”

“I don’t think you have any control over that.”

“And there’s really nothing more he should be worried about?”

“No. Absolutely nothing. Liz is my sister-in-law and nothing more. I really like her. But I know, even if I would have had a chance with her, it wouldn’t have gone well. You know the old saying,
Opposites attract,
right?” Terence nodded and leaned back in his chair. “The saying really is true. Liz and I are too much alike for anything to have come of it. And I understood that pretty quickly. At least, after their second escapade. If I had been in his place, I would have given her a good thrashing so she would have had to eat standing up for at least a week.”

With an incredulous expression, Terence laughed. “I believe it. It’s still a puzzle to me how he manages to deal with her without completely flipping out when she does things like deliberately totaling his SUV or taking part in street brawls.”

“Don’t forget when she made a complete fool of his friend, sedating him with sleeping pills and had him wearing her things,” said Jeff with raised eyebrows and a mocking glance.

“Hey now! She cheated in that game. I figured she would have tried to win honestly. How would I have known they were playing with marked cards?” Terence shook his head. “Did you actually see what was on the back of the shirt?”

“Something to do with men and women I think.”

“It said,
Women are wonderful. Fortunately I am not a man!
And I
had
to put that on!”

“I think the skirt distracted me from the shirt.”

Terence punched his shoulder and Jeff displayed his well-known cheeky grin.

Yes, Liz and Jeff were simply too much alike. Never in his life would it have worked. It was right, just as it was. She was a good friend with the same skewed sense of humor Jeff had, and he liked her a lot. But nothing more than that. Jeff leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest and was at peace with himself. Why worry about something that didn’t exist anymore?

***

Gray quickly closed the bedroom door behind him before he turned to Liz with an indignant expression. Even though he was quiet, he still vented his displeasure. “You can’t just…,” waving his arms around her body in the air, “…run around like that! At any rate, not when other men are in the house.”

“What’s the matter? The robe goes down to my knees. I’ve had less on and you’ve never gotten so upset,” she said, alluding to her tiny bikini. “Besides, you gave it to me. So if you didn’t like it, why did you buy it in the first place?”

“I like it. A lot, in fact. But you can clearly see everything underneath it when the light hits you at the right angle like it just did. You could see more of you than when you wear your bikini. And that covers your body really poorly.”

Liz looked in disbelief at him. Agitated she gasped. Oh God, had she appeared virtually naked in front of Chris, Jeff and Terence? Her voice was just a squeak, “
Everything
?”

Gray nodded and pressed his lips together so as not to laugh. Then he did, holding his sides.

“Oh you … you…” She hit him lightly on the chest and looked for a suitable word. A perfectly harmless one came to her that she could throw at him, “…man!”

“That I am.” Gray wrapped his arms around Liz and pulled her close. Tenderly his mouth swept across her lip. “A man. Your husband, to be exact.”

After a short time Gray and Chris joined Jeff and Terence who were waiting patiently on the patio. Together they discussed their course of action.

“The best way would be if we approached him directly in person. I want to look him in the eyes when he learns of it from me.”

“Are we sure we’ve covered everything?” Jeff asked Gray, still doubtful.

“Eddie is the short form of Edward. And Edward is the Lt. General’s first name. He’s the only one added to the list of suspects with that name.” Gray sighed and looked around. “Chris and I will drive over to see him and confront him. We’ll wait and see how he reacts and what he says. Maybe you’re right, Jeff, and there’s more to it than we think. Maybe he doesn’t really have anything to do with it. But dammit, I won’t sit back and do nothing and watch as my wife and Jennifer and their relatives continue to be hunted down, just because he’s my boss.”

“None of us wants to witness anything like what happened in Alabama again,” said Terence. “Nevertheless, we don’t have any solid proof that points the finger at him.”

“What do you suggest then?”

“We’ll deal with him ourselves. But just like the others too. We’ll gather information and evaluate it. Then we’ll be able to have clear results that will either incriminate or exonerate him. Right now all we have are initials and the possible short form of his first name. We need more. We need concrete proof and not just suspicions.”

Gray didn’t want to pour over documents again, scour accounts and have to get involved in private files to finally be able to solve this mystery. He’d had enough of it. More than enough. For weeks they had been fishing in muddy water and hadn’t accomplished anything. Gray wanted closure. He wanted peace for Liz, her family, his family. But Terence was right. If they were too forceful, the effort would backfire and they wouldn’t accomplish anything.

“Okay. We’ll do as you say,” Gray said even though he wasn’t satisfied. He picked up his coffee from the table and took a sip.

The doorbell rang and Jeff answered the door. A few seconds later, Jeff sent for them.

No one had expected this. Townsend had shown up. Next to him was a young, sullen-looking man in his early twenties. It was obvious the young man didn’t like being there.

“By the looks of it, your hunt’s over, Blackwood,” said Townsend as he looked at the man next to him who was staring at the floor. “You may remember my son. From the ball.”

“What does your son have to do with it?” Chris remembered only too well that Liz had bashed his head against Josh’s car. That’s why the Lt. General had wanted to pay the bill.

But it wasn’t Townsend, rather Gray, who explained the connection to him because he suddenly understood what it meant. “Your son’s name is Edward, just like you? Edward Townsend Jr.?”

“Your suspicions are correct. You found a trace that pointed to me, right?”

“Actually, it was Liz and Jennifer who found the clue, but yes, it pointed to you.”

Jeff chimed in. “I just said he didn’t have anything to do with it!” At Gray’s angry glare he backed down. “Well, at least not directly.”

Terence turned to the young man and asked the question everyone was thinking. “Why?” When Eddie kept staring stubbornly at the floor, the back of his head received a powerful slap from his father. Angrily he flashed his eyes at Terence and said, “She made a mockery of me at the ball. My buddies are still laughing about how she worked me over.” Then he fell back into stubborn silence and looked at the floor again.

Gray looked at him in disbelief. This boy had put his wife, Jennifer and their families in such danger out of injured pride? Simple, lousy revenge had been the reason she was shot and he had been living in constant fear for her life and that of their unborn child? Rage boiled over in him; it was only with difficulty he kept it in check. “Do you have any idea, you brat, what you caused?” he said furiously. Gray didn’t care that he wasn’t showing his boss’s son any hint of respect and was intimidating him with his threatening posture.

Out of concern that Gray could lose his temper even more, Terence and Jeff stood on either side of him. They would be able to intervene very quickly if punches were thrown.

Eddie Jr. took cover behind his father. Gray scared him shitless, and he wanted to get out of there and out of reach of these men who all looked at him with threatening glares.

“Calm down, Gray! Your reaction is understandable after what happened to Liz. And each of us would be more than happy to give him a good beating, but what’s done is done. Let him be!” Jeff said. “Besides, I’m sure his father will give him a fair punishment.”

Everyone’s gaze moved to Townsend who just nodded while continuing to look at Gray who was wedged between Jeff and Terence and still ready to pounce.

When Junior sniveled pathetically, some of Gray’s tension drained. Expectantly Gray looked from him to his father.

“No, Dad! You can’t do that!”

“But I can, my boy. Maybe you’ll learn then what it means when we talk about discipline and a sense of honor.”

“Please, Dad! Don’t send me there. I know I messed up and I’m sorry, really.”

“You don’t know anything,” said Townsend. “These people, with whose lives you so carelessly gambled, have risked their necks countless times to keep all of us out of harm’s way. They have saved individual lives and tons of people, communities, and countries have them to thank! And you want to tell me you know what you’ve done?”

With wide eyes, Junior looked at his father and suddenly understood the scope of the harm he had caused. He nodded and resigned himself to his punishment at the military academy. The place he never wanted to go, no matter how much his father pestered him.

Eddie detested everything that had to do with the military, everything it stood for. He loathed rules and never got along with people of authority. It was bad enough his father constantly set an example of military correctness. Now he wanted to make his son a spitting image of himself. Eddie couldn’t imagine a worse punishment. He wallowed in self-pity over the situation he had gotten into.

Townsend took a deep breath to calm himself and turned to Gray and Chris. “I hope Elizabeth, Jennifer and your future children are alive and well?” He looked up and smiled. “I see they’re doing fine.”

Gray and Chris turned and watched their wives coming down the stairs.

“Why are you squishing Gray like that?” Liz asked Jeff and Terence. “And what kind of a cry was that anyway?”

“Don’t tell me there are more problems?” Jennifer said, letting Chris pull her into an embrace as she looked up at him. Why else would the Lt. General show up in person?

Liz examined the tall, young man who stood half-hidden behind Townsend, giving him a searching look because he seemed familiar. She pushed Jeff aside, put her arm around Gray’s waist, leaned against him and swept one hand over his chest. Immediately he embraced her and pressed Liz tightly to him. His muscles were tense; she could feel it clearly under her hands. “What’s wrong?” Then she realized how she knew the boy. “Oh!” she said and looked at Gray.

“May I introduce you?” Gray said in a strained voice. “Edward Townsend Junior. We know him though as Eddie T.”

Surprised, Liz gasped. “He’s the one who stole the files? But why?”

“Because you made a fool of him at the ball. That’s why!”

“And how did he get the files?”

Townsend intervened. “I’ll explain it to you all soon.” Then he pushed his son toward the door, disappeared outside with him and came back in a minute later. He accepted their invitation to join them on the patio, because his explanation of this issue would take a while. With a cup of coffee in his hand, he leaned back in his chair, looked around and began his explanation.

“As you know now, none of our own people were the security leak.” Townsend ran a hand over his forehead and sighed. Everyone could see how it depressed him to have been the security leak, even if indirectly through his son. “Eddie wasn’t in the system to get to the files. That’s why you didn’t discover any traces of hackers and why you didn’t move forward with the investigation. He got the documents out of the safe in my house, copied them and sold them. I didn’t have any idea he knew the combination. Some time ago I told my wife, in case something unexpected happened. The safe is where I keep all the important documents concerning our family, in addition to a large amount of cash. She needed to know where she could find everything in an emergency.” Townsend took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. He looked older than he had a few days ago. Older, tired and depressed. “My wife gave it to our son too, which I didn’t know. Until this morning. I caught him standing in front of the opened safe, rummaging around. Foolishly at the same time when the little incident occurred at the ball, I had just put all the agents’ dossiers in my safe. And by chance, Eddie rummaged around in the files, found their dossiers and drew his conclusions from the records and the security clearances of the agents. He understood immediately that the personnel weren’t just members of a “simple” Special Forces unit and their names would be of some value in the right market.”

“So why didn’t he sell all the files? Why only Jennifer’s, mine, and four others?”

“Actually, he had only planned to bring yours to the man, Elizabeth. But so as not to attract attention, he simply picked out five other agents. Otherwise it would probably have looked like he just had it in for you, which actually was the case.”

“And how did you know so quickly, that the documents were in circulation?”

“We had been watching the people he had offered to sell the files to for a long time. Or more precisely, we had been in contact with them. The people belong to a small group that earn their living with the brokering of sales of highly controversial information. The highest bidder within a predetermined time frame gets the contract.”

“But why didn’t you bust these people if you were already in contact with them?” Liz asked confused.

“The problem is, we couldn’t understand where exactly they were. They constantly changed location which made our search extremely difficult even in this day and age, with sophisticated technology at our disposal! Admittedly we had established contact with them using fake identities. Unfortunately, until now it had never gotten that far. In the past we had been able to buy back some information. But we just had bad luck in the case of our agents’ dossiers. Others were given the contract.”

“Those who kidnapped Jennifer’s family, right?”

“Exactly.”